* * *
Later that afternoon I walked down to the church where the first and second graders had class during the school year. I walked to the front row, pulled down the kneeling bench and rested my elbows on the pew in front of me. Inside the church was beautiful, the magnitude of it all making me feel small and that my secrets were not my own. It had been months since I’d been to church and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d prayed. Harry and I only attended on Christmas and Easter, which I’d always felt guilty about, as if it were just for show. But I’d started questioning my beliefs when Charlie died.
I closed my eyes and waited.
“Charlie,” I whispered into my hands. “I don’t know if you can hear me. I’m sorry it’s been a while. I miss you terribly and I have so much I want to tell you.”
I waited as if I might get some sign.
“I’ve met someone, a wonderful, caring, good man, Charlie, and you’re not going to believe it, he knows you! Or he knew you. It’s Thomas Brown. He was a friend of Hicks McGowen at the repair shop and you worked for him, you and Timmy. Can you believe that? All these years after you left us and I meet someone who was your friend and teacher. Do you remember him? Of course you must. You can’t imagine how it feels to have that kind of connection to you. I remember how much you loved your apprenticeship.
“But here’s the thing, Charlie: I’ve been spending an awful lot of time with this man, and I know it’s not what our parents would approve of; they don’t know about any of it. I know I made my choice to marry Harry and now I have to live with that decision. But I was so young and it was so soon after you were taken from us. I think I was looking for something then, anything but the sadness that swallowed us up after we lost you.
“The thing is that I’m falling in love with this man; I am in love with him, everything about him. I can’t help it. Now that I’ve met him I understand for the first time what that really means. Oh, Charlie, I wish you were here. We were so young before, we never would have talked about any of this kind of thing; we would have ignored each other or annoyed each other and talked to our friends but not to each other. What a waste, what a stupid waste, when we were under the same roof for all those years. I would do anything to have you here now. I know that once you saw Thomas again and once you saw how happy he makes me, you’d understand why I am saying all this. I think you’d approve of my feelings for him.
“But I don’t know what to do. What would you do? Don’t think badly of me, please. Harry doesn’t treat me the way a husband should. He’s not loyal to me and he’s made me feel so awful, so inadequate, that I wasn’t enough for him, that I somehow drove him to act this way. But I’m starting to think that I deserve to be happy, to be loved and appreciated, and Thomas loves me.” I sighed and rested my head on my arms. “I just don’t know what to do, all I can think about is escaping this life with Harry and starting over, but I don’t know how I could ever untangle myself from my marriage—”
The large church door creaked open and let in a stream of bright sunshine. I looked back and saw a woman with a toddler enter the church. Suddenly I panicked. Had I been whispering loudly enough for her to hear? Was anyone else in the church? I gathered my pocketbook, made the sign of the cross and hastily exited down the side walkway hoping I hadn’t been overheard.
27
I touched the water with my fingers, then slid my pointed toes into the scorching water like a hand into a tight leather glove. The skin on my calves turned pink, but I crouched down, dipping the rest of my body in slowly, methodically, my rear, my thighs, my stomach, my breasts. It burned for just a moment; then I acclimated to the sensation, steam settling on my face, perspiration forming on my brow. I leaned my back against the metal tub until the water almost reached the top, its rounded surface threatening to spill over with one hasty movement. I sucked in damp air, one sharp breath, but then the water around my body warmed my insides, and I melted into the water. I liked the flinching heat. I sank my body farther into the water, all the way to my neck, and the water rolled over the curved metal edge, pooling at the four feet of the tub; then I slid all the way under, my legs bent, back slightly arched, letting my hair fan out underwater as if it were a golden mane.
Harry hadn’t come out the previous week—in fact, he hadn’t been to Montauk since things had intensified with Thomas—and I was sick and anxious about seeing him that night. He was to meet with investors about buying out some of Fisher’s share of Montauk. The man who had turned cattle fields into the Beach Club and the Manor into a Manhattanites’ playground had lost a lot of his money a few years back and had been struggling ever since a summer hurricane had slammed Miami Beach, his other big development. The damage had all but ruined him.
Harry wouldn’t spend the night, he’d conduct his business and head back to the city, and I thanked the stars for that. I hadn’t told him about the break-in to our room, the lipstick on the mirror, I hadn’t even spoken to him, but I certainly hadn’t forgotten. His train had arrived a few hours ago and he was already at his meeting in town at the Fisher building, the tallest in Montauk. The penthouse was Fisher’s and the street level housed a restaurant, but the middle five floors were vacant, intended for office space. Harry wanted to turn them into apartments. City-style living at the beach, he said.
While I was out at the school with Dolly and Elizabeth he’d left a message that I was to meet him at the Manor restaurant for a very early dinner before he headed back to the city. I had hoped that our paths wouldn’t cross. How was I supposed to act around him now? I was scared that he would take one look at me and know about Thomas and I was frightened of what he’d do if he did.
Thomas planned to pick me up at the bottom of Manor Hill before his shift started at six, since I had been sure that Harry would be gone by then. There was no way to get a message to him before dinner and it would be too dark to ride the bike by the time Harry left.
“Beatrice.” Harry stood as I approached the table by the window, my hair curled and loose around my shoulders, my face powdered to its natural milky tone, the pink flush from the hot bath gone or at least concealed. A long cream silk goddess dress, simple and elegant at once, flowed around my legs and trailed behind me.
“Hello,” I said, giving him my cheek. “How were your meetings?”
“Quite good,” he said. “Nothing settled yet, I think we can go lower on price. Fisher’s hurting badly from the Miami blow; he needs some solid investors or he’ll lose everything.”
I nodded and we both looked at the menu for a very long time.
Harry snapped his fingers to the waitstaff and pointed to his bourbon. “And a champagne for the lady!” he called out across the almost empty dining room.
“If you’re going to invest why not buy land and build a few houses, or even some small cottages, a lodge, a quaint version of the Manor, or buy a few existing homes? But nobody’s going to want to come out here and stay in a high-rise building.”
“Of course they will. That’s what they know; it will be a taste of home for New Yorkers.”
“Folks don’t come out here for a taste of city life; they come here to escape that.”
He flicked his hand in the air toward my face. “You’re wrong. They think they want to escape it, but actually they want to put on airs just as they would back home and mingle with the people they know from the city.” I looked away out the window to the silhouettes of trees, not caring to see him dismiss my suggestion.
“Just my two cents,” I said, taking a slim out of my cigarette case and lighting it, blowing a steady line of smoke to the window like a tightrope between myself and the outside.
My casual clothes were already laid out on the bed upstairs and I thought about dropping my silk gown to the floor, stepping into my skirt and blouse and waiting for Thomas’s truck to pull up on Manor Hill. I was discovering a capacity to make Harry invisible; he only had to do one thing, one flick of the wrist, one snide comment, and I could shut him out comple
tely. I didn’t hear his words as he spoke about return on investment and taxes.
“Sounds wonderful,” I said, and I heard the way it curled from my lips, sarcastic, as if I didn’t give one care. He looked up at me and shook his head ever so slightly, then looked back down to his drink. We ordered and he ate quickly. I picked at my food like a bird, distracted by my thoughts.
“I have to dash up to the room before I go,” Harry said. I was wondering at what point I would let Dolly in on my secret until I registered what he had said.
“To the room?” I asked. “Oh, I’ll go for you.” I thought of my clothes on the bed, laid out neatly with an overnight bag on the floor next to my shoes with some other nighttime necessities. “What do you need?”
“Some paperwork,” he said. “I’ll go. I know where to look.”
“Just tell me where,” I said, pushing my chair back slightly. “No need for you to rush when you have to catch the train.”
“It’s fine,” he said, getting annoyed with me, signing the bill, standing.
“I’ll join you,” I said quickly.
“Suit yourself.” He started walking a little too fast for me to keep up in my dress, and he ascended the stairs one or two steps ahead.
In the room I watched him survey the space, trying to remember where he’d kept his paperwork, not even noticing the clothes I had on the bed, the clothes I’d be wearing for Thomas as soon as he left.
I couldn’t help but linger on the slope of his shoulders; shoulders I’d once seen as powerful and manly now looked slim and angular. His long legs and lean build appeared lanky, even beanlike. Everything about him, from his chiseled jaw that I’d once found so attractive, to his pointy fingers, to his jolty movements as he strode across the room from one side to the next, seemed sharp and unwelcoming. He was a man I’d once admired; I couldn’t even picture that now. I didn’t want to and I blamed him for that. It was his fault that I’d found my way into another man’s arms, I justified in my head. I was thinking this when I heard myself begin to speak.
“You know, you come here and you don’t even attempt to make this marriage work, to spend any real time with me, to make love to your wife,” I said, and my eyes widened. Thoughts had become words and the words were floating around in the air between us now.
He turned his head slowly and glared. “Excuse me?” He pulled open a drawer and closed it quietly.
I kept on. “What kind of man doesn’t want time alone with his wife when he hasn’t seen her for over a week?” I didn’t know if these words were coming out of my mouth to assuage the guilt I was feeling or to justify out loud why I was having an affair. The absolute last thing I wanted was to be intimate with Harry, but it made me angry that he didn’t want that either.
“What are you suggesting?” His voice low and cruel and bitter, I immediately regretted what I’d started. “I’m about to catch a train so I can get back to work, so I can support us.”
“This room was broken into; one of your scorned lovers wrote on that mirror right there that you are a cheating liar, as if we didn’t already know that.” I had never spoken to Harry this way, ever, but I felt stronger than ever and I wanted to hurt him. “Perhaps if you had found more time for your wife and less time for your whores I’d have a child by now.” I was speaking in vulgar terms and yet I couldn’t stop myself. “It’s your fault I’ll never be a mother, God damn you! You haven’t shown me any interest in months.”
He turned and gave me a deep, penetrating stare, a menace in his eyes that I’d never seen. “How dare you? You ungrateful bitch.” He strode over to me and took my wrist in his hand and clenched. A shot of pain ran down my arm, but I tried to act as if it didn’t hurt.
“You want me to show you some interest?” he said, pushing my shoulders against the wall, my head knocking back against it abruptly. His hand was on my collarbone, close to my breast, close to my neck, pinning me against the wall, the other hand reached down and hoisted up the fabric of my dress, but it was too long, too full for him to grasp with one hand, so he ripped at the straps on both of the shoulders and with a tear the thin, wispy dress was at my feet.
“Harry,” I said in a hoarse cry, “stop!” But he pulled at my undergarments, unhooking and ripping. I tried to pull away from his grip, but his hand went back to my collarbone, his thumb tightly pushing on my neck, and I found it hard to breathe. I grabbed at his shoulders but couldn’t move him. With his other hand he unbuckled his belt and pants and within seconds he was slamming me against the wall, my neck still pinned, my toes barely touching the floor. I tried to scream, it felt like a knife between my legs, but I could only whimper. He kept at it; then he grabbed me under the arms and threw me on the bed, on top of the clothes I’d laid out for Thomas. He turned me on my stomach.
“Harry, stop this!” I cried, louder now. “Stop!” But he didn’t stop. It was horribly painful, but I squeezed my eyes tight and stopped struggling, I just wanted it over, but that just seemed to make him more angry; he wanted me to resist.
“Is this what you wanted? Is this what you’re missing?” he grunted, and he reached forward and yanked my hair back. “Is this what you want?”
He finished, releasing himself inside of me. I imagined his useless sperm pooling like a stagnant pond, everything inside of me closed off to him. I didn’t move. Just lay there on my stomach, my face pressed into the sheets and clothes. I didn’t care what he did next.
“Was that enough for you?” he said. I heard him do up his pants, open another drawer, find his paperwork and slam it shut. “Jesus Christ. And now I’m going to miss my goddamned train.” The door slammed shut.
* * *
I emerged from my bed, disoriented, nauseated, in pain. I’d been curled in a ball, wrapped in the sheets, for what seemed hours and when I first awoke I assumed it was morning. I thought of Thomas, and then, in a flash, I remembered the ugliness of Harry’s violence against me. I rushed to the bathroom and vomited, then crawled back to the bed, climbed back under the covers and lay there until morning.
28
“Don’t stand so close to the edge,” Thomas said as I absently kicked some gravel and rocks over the edge of the cliff and to the water below.
He was fixing the emergency rope ladder that ran all the way down the cliff front to the shallow bay below. If someone were ever in trouble or in need, if a boat ran ashore and a crew cast off in a dingy, they would be able to get to safety.
I inched forward and shuddered at the thought of Harry, his face, his cruel eyes, chiseled jaw, tanned skin, like a Hollywood movie star, how I had looked at his face when we married and thought I was lucky. Disappointment and despair filled me. The wind picked up slightly and pushed at my back; I wanted to let it take me, carry me wherever it wanted me to go.
“Come on, Bea,” Thomas said. “Come away from there.” I heard his footsteps approach me. I was two steps away from a massive drop to the ocean below and one step behind me I could feel his breath on my neck.
“The ground is loose,” he said. “The elements have worked havoc on this cliff.” I inched forward a little more, feeling the magnitude of the drop right in front of me, feeling this man’s presence close to me. If I stepped forward I would free-fall into the salty sky and the white-capped waves. If I stepped back I’d be against his chest; his arms would instinctively wrap around me. Both choices pulled at me. The briny air swept the hair back from my face, made my eyes water, and then I felt his arm close around my waist, pulling me away from the cliff and turning me around to face him.
“What are you doing?” he asked. “What’s going on with you? You’ve barely spoken all day, you didn’t show up last night, no explanation, and now you’re acting strange.” He pulled me toward him, but I was frozen.
“Nothing’s going on; I couldn’t get away.” I wondered what my future looked like, a vague question I’d been pushing out of my head for too long but which was now shoved violently to the forefront. I couldn’t imagine going back
to the city after the summer was over and living out my life with Harry. Not now. How could I stay with him? I could never let him touch me again. I would never be able to look him in the eye, to smile or say anything nice. It would be a nasty life, filled with tension and hatred, a life I never wished for myself. All I wanted was to stay hidden up at the lighthouse with Thomas, but now I even flinched when he touched me.
“Is this about Charlie?” he asked. “I’ve upset you so much telling you everything, haven’t I?”
I shook my head no, then nodded yes. Everything felt so overwhelming. “I do miss him,” I said. I felt tears rising up in me, I couldn’t let them out, so I searched the sky, forced to pull myself together. Thomas took my hands and squeezed them tight, but his touch weakened my will and the tears rolled down my cheeks. I didn’t know what he would do if I told him the truth.
“It’s nothing,” I said, trying to smile, though my mouth wouldn’t cooperate. “Oh, it’s this school issue,” I said. “It upsets me. Those kids should have a better chance.”
“What? That’s what this is about, the school?” He looked baffled.
“Did you know that some of those kids’ parents can’t even afford four cents a day for half a pint of milk?” The stinging sensation from holding back the tears finally left and I gave in completely; tears rolled down my face and I felt some relief. “And you know what they really want?” I took a deep breath and as I exhaled I was sobbing. “What those kids really want is a stage so they can put on shows.”
“A stage?”
I couldn’t see him through my tears. I knew he was watching me, but he wasn’t about to question me in this state. He just pulled me into him and held me tight. How good it felt to cry, to really cry. How hard I’d been working to keep it all inside. Something about his touch, his strong body, his arms wrapping me up, made me lose all control, heaving big, heavy sobs, and he simply held me until I was ready to stop.
Montauk Page 27